I got IKEA pax wardrobes delivered for free and didn't even drive all the way to Warrington

If there's one thing I hate about buying things online, it's the delivery fee.

Despite spending hundreds on furniture, nothing seems to dint the pocket like paying an additional £45 to get your order delivered. I've needed to kit out my house with new wardrobes for coming up to two years.

Admittedly , I put it off longer because I couldn't be bothered making the drive to Warrington, and braving the IKEA shop on one of my days off. But as my floordrobe began to get out of control, I thought I'd check out IKEA's online wardrobe planner and couldn't believe how easy it was to use.

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After cursing myself for being too lazy to check earlier, I found out the process was super quick and simple. Within half an hour I'd designed my own PAX wardrobe, in the exact style and colour that I wanted.

The process was off to a good start, frames, doors, interiors and handles all picked and added to my cart. But then I headed to the dreaded check-out, wondering how much it was going to set me back to have it delivered.

That's when I came across the click and collect service. The fairly new collection points mean that customers can get their IKEA ordered dropped off for free (on orders more than £200, or £10 for small orders).

My nearest collection point was Aintree retail park but I also noticed there was a drop off site at Tesco in Old Swan. After selecting my delivery date and timeslot, all I needed to do was wait for a notification to confirm when my wardrobes would be ready for me to collect (which was only two days later).

I found the whole process surprising easy, although, the delivery staff didn't mess around when it came to the delivery slot. My chosen time was between 1pm and 3pm and truthfully, I'd planned to get there at 3pm on the dot due to work commitments.

However at 2.30pm I had a phone call from a staff member, who told me I'd need to be there for collection BEFORE 3pm, as they start to pack up at around 2.50pm to leave promptly at 3pm. This aspect could have been better explained during the check-out or even on the confirmation email.

The woman on the phone told me that it was explained in an automated email sent out when my collection was ready to collect at 12.57pm. Of course this was just a couple of hours before I needed to collect. It warned: "the truck with your order will be leaving at 3:00 PM. If your order is not collected within this time, it will be returned to IKEA and a full refund will be issued."

The collect from partner points, located within select Tesco carparks, was first tested and trialled in Blackburn in 2022. After this, IKEA then confirmed in an update at the end of 2023 that it would open 70 new click and collect points across the country.

Addressing it at the time, Jakob Bertilsson, country customer fulfilment manager, IKEA UK, said: "This national roll-out of mobile pick-up points is an exciting milestone in our partnership with Tesco, which will bring IKEA closer to people across all parts of the UK. As customer shopping behaviours change and evolve, we will continue to grow our service offer to make shopping with IKEA more convenient, accessible, and affordable than ever before."